Towards the end of the game, I found myself shivering in University Stadium. The Utah State Aggies were driving down the field and were looking like they were going to give themselves a decent chance to kick a field goal to take their first lead of the game with only a minute remaining. Sure, I was nervous, but if I’m being honest, the real reason I was shivering is because I was cold and hadn’t prepared for the wind. I couldn’t complain, though, as that same wind was what made a 41 yard field goal attempt go wide right to give the Lobos their first best win since Rocky Long was the head coach.
Between the weather and the low expectations for this game, the Lobos had their worst attendance of the season. However, while quite a few fans didn’t show up, the Lobo defense did. Clearly revitalized from the bye week, the defense gave their best performance of the season, holding what OFEI had as the 32nd ranked offense to only 13 points. Those 13 points were considerably fewer than what was generally expected. In fact, the line for this game had shot up this morning to Utah State by 20 and the over/under set at 58, which would imply a 39-19 game. That was close to what the Lobos ended up with, but three times as much as what the Aggies were held to.
And watching the game, the defense’s performance didn’t seem fluky. The Aggies were unable to get anything going on the ground, very rarely finding a hole that wasn’t immediately filled by a Lobo. Whatever it was that was causing the Lobos to give up huge runs in their last few games seems to have been addressed for at least one game. Maybe it was getting some guys healthy, maybe it was a change of scheme, maybe the defense is just finally coming together, or maybe it’s all of those things. Whatever the case, the Lobo run defense turned into a wall tonight, only allowing 78 yards on 37 attempts for a 2.1 yards per carry average. Who knows if that will continue, but if nothing else, they should know have the confidence that they have the ability to stop the run.
If there was a weak spot on the defense, it was in the passing game. The Lobos got lost in coverage a few times, which luckily didn’t hurt them too much, and they did have some missed tackles on a screen pass that went for 63 yards. But, they did have a few passes defended and only allowed a very accurate passer to complete 54.2, so as a whole it was still fine. All in all, the total defensive package allowed less than 300 yards, which feels like a huge step forward for a defense that hasn’t allowed fewer than 400 yards since they played Mississippi Valley State.
The offense, on the other hand, had a tough time. They only rushed for 134 yards and passed for just 104 yards, 86 of which came on a single play. The 14 points came from two wild plays. The first touchdown was that 86 yard pass, in which Lamar Jordan started scrambling to his right and then found a wide-open Delane Hart-Johnson, who was able to make it the remaining 70 yards or so to get to the end zone. The second touchdown was a three yard run by Richard McQuarley that was set up when David Anaya knocked the ball loose from the punt returner and Reece White recovered the ball at the Aggie three yard line. So, it was great that the Lobos were able to make those plays happen, but if you separate them out, the rest of the offense basically didn’t do anything. Utah State is a tough team defensively, so it’s not a huge surprise that there was such a struggle today, but they can’t count on winning often with those sorts of numbers.
I don’t know if the offense will continue to struggle in the next couple of weeks or if the defense will have another dominant performance in them, but for now, it’s hard not to love this victory. These sorts of victories are the kind that make sports fun, that make you feel like you just witnessed something amazing. In the prediction section in my game preview, I wrote:
My head tells me that the Aggies are going to win, with a final score looking something like 35-24. My heart has the Lobos squeaking out an exciting victory.
Sometimes the heart wins.